While traveling, many travelers attempt to lock or otherwise secure their luggage from unauthorized access to the items stored in the luggage. For example, it is common for airline passengers to secure their luggage to prevent someone from accessing items stored in the luggage while the luggage is out of the passenger's control. Typically, luggage is secured by affixing a locking mechanism to one or more access points of the luggage. For example (and as illustrated in FIG. 1), many travel bags 100 include a zipper 102 disposed around a compartment of the bag such that the compartment may be opened or sealed by zipping or unzipping the compartment. To secure the compartment, a traveler may affix a lock or other locking apparatus to one or more pull tabs of the zipper assembly to prevent access to the secured compartment. The lock may have an associated key that is kept by the passenger or a combination known only to the passenger such that access to the bag by someone other than the passenger is prevented.
However, recent additional security measures instituted by governmental agencies for traveling passengers may make securing a travel bag problematic. In many instances, federal or local agents may require access to the luggage of passengers to inspect the contents of the bag for security reasons. However, locked luggage may prevent such access by these authorized agents. Also, the passenger may no longer be near the luggage when the bag is checked to provide the needed key or combination for access into the bag. In these instances, the lock affixed to the luggage may need to be destroyed so that the security agents can access the luggage. Thus, often times, a traveler must choose between traveling with unsecured baggage or running the risk of having the lock of a secured bag destroyed during a security check.
One method developed to allow access to locked luggage by authorized agents is to sell approved locks that authorized agents may unlock. For example, a skeleton key for a particular brand of a lock may be developed and provided to the security agents so that they may unlock any bag secured for that particular brand of lock. Similarly, all locks of a particular manufacturer may have a master combination known by the security agents to unlock and access the bag. However, such locks may be costly and/or difficult to find for some passengers. Additionally, such locks may be lost or damaged when not in use.